PG was cheering lambda school's free 4 weeks developer intern trial a while ago. If he doesn't think that is exploitative, maybe huge difference in morality.
Airbnb spamming forums early on, sketchy marketing techniques, avoiding commercial regulations that hotel has to go through for good reasons and displacing genuine local rent seekers is not exploitative then maybe the bar is high enough for YC.
Should the founder have to think about whether the idea could potentially be exploitative or he just needs to think about what is good for the users aka not exploiting the tourists?
Airbnb feels like a very bad example. It’s rich people renting out their homes to other rich people. You’re saying that’s more exploitative than rich people renting out those same homes to poor people? How do you think that really pans out?
No. Residential areas are different from commercial areas in good parts of the world for a reason. This is not a bad example.
Many people took loans to buy airbnb to aggressively rent them. Criminal activity go through roof with tourists in the neighborhood. You don't know who your neighbors are because they keep changing. It doesn't feel safe to let your 10 year old son out for many.
Drugs, garbage on the road, covid hot spots. Hotels also have to pay taxes which airbnb avoids. Price in the area goes up for locals. People move out to surrounding areas and have to commute more.
Would you say this collection of things you’re describing is, “AirBnb is exploiting someone?”
Anyway, there’s basically no evidence for any of what you’re saying, especially the crime part. The one not-yet-peer reviewed paper trying to show Airbnb’s causal effect on rents found a $9/yr increase (1), which is laughably, hilariously small - it could not possibly be playing a significant role in rent pricing in the biggest markets, and the researchers specifically excluded the possibility of AirBnb reducing supply. And this factual criticism is the one you actually omitted!
I think there is quite a bit of evidence that "Residential areas are different from commercial areas in good parts of the world"-- they operate under different regulatory regimes. For example, insurance, and health & safety standards.
Hotels have to have commercial liability insurance. Hotels have to maintain certain levels of fire safety, and food sanitation, etc.
My brother works for HUD. They have many examples of people (ab)using Airbnb to operate as slumlords; a type of exploitation which is outlawed. The corporation Airbnb has historically not been cooperative in assisting the HUD in this process.
So no, it is not just rich people renting to rich people. In many cases it is rich people using the platform to avoid regulations which prohibit exploitative renting to poor people.
And the corporation which enables this actively hinders investigations. Because Airbnb is also getting a cut of these rents.
But for people that poor, isn’t the alternative not living there at all? Or a different slumlord?
I have nothing but empathy for someone who can’t drive and cannot afford normal housing in the same place they receive services. I totally understand how some of those people would choose to have fewer services and leave, or god forbid be homeless.
But do those people you’re describing, who actively login into AirBnb - if they didn’t get something they paid for in-platform, or if the listing is lying, are you saying Airbnb doesn’t come through? It almost certainly does. A giant corporation is honestly better equipped to go to bat for a wronged customer simply because it has the money to provide a remedy and a case manager does not - the case manager must get all remedies from the richest institution of them all, the government.
Personally I believe Airbnb should just design a high minimum rental cost and ban all transactions that are too cheap. But I wouldn’t describe Airbnb as exploiting these people, they are obviously victims of landlords?
Maybe they want some employees to implement scary backdoors or portals and it's easier to control an immigrant dependent on Facebook or with different sense of morality.
Overall experience feels better on android. Few things that make difference for me.
1. Notifications are leagues ahead of anything on iOS.
2. Little accessibility features like sound search, automatic caption, text selection from any screen/pictures, better integration with google assistant adds up.
3. Customizability. Yes, even now iPhone is super limited in the layout you can have on home screen or the new app launcher. You can't group things or put them wherever you want on the screen. This is ridiculous.
4. Android phones have higher refresh rates. Almost any flagship in 2020. The punch hole camera feels better than the notch. Face ID = problematic in the pandemic with masks. Though, I like it generally but apple could have given touch ID on the same device as well.
5. For tinkerers, it has better support again. Youtube vanced, tachiyomi, advanced adblockers, "real" firefox with extensions, etc are only available on android.
The best part is you can get the pixel 4a for $300 with some carriers. 3 years of updates which is what typical upgrade cycle looks like for iPhone users even if they get "updates" for longer.
You're 100% right on notifications -- despite having borrowed a bunch of ideas from Android on how to handle notifications, iOS still doesn't get it completely right.
There was a point in time that I was pretty deep into the Android scene, but at this point in my life I just want my phone to work consistently and have great battery life.
After many years of using Android devices (including many Nexus / Pixel devices), I switched to an iPhone 11 Pro Max last year. I've been very happy with that switch, my phone always makes it through a day of use and I haven't ran into any of the quirks that I encountered on my Android devices on a regular basis.
I completely understand why you would prefer Android, but there are definitely people (including myself) that are happier with iPhones.
Yes. I have the same iPhone too. I just don't get why so many people here are fixated on chipset differences when average people care more about having better quality mic, speakers, etc. Even camera is good enough on most devices these days. The photos will not have huge differences after being compressed on online platforms in the end. How many people actually care about having raw photos?
I just don't think any flagship in 2020 is worth it for an average consumer when options like pixel 4a exists. iPhone se is not good due to the screen but otherwise it would have been a great contender as well. People notice 90hz crisp display more than faster opening apps.
You're not wrong, but things like a unified clipboard, continuity, the peace of mind which comes from knowing that there's a very small chance of malware coming in from the App Store, and (again my opinion) more polished indie apps like Ulysses, Things, Fantastical etc. keep the iPhone ahead in my book.
I think notifications are perfectly fine on iPhones. I've not used android for 4 years now, but if their notifications are the same as they were in 2016 (or just marginally different) then I don't miss much. I confess point 2 sounds very appealing. I do use custom DNS for adblocking, so I don't think I miss it on the iPhone, and tbh I've fallen in the rabbit hole of tinkering with my phone enough that I feel more productive without a phone I can tinker with.
No, notifications have changed a lot in the recent years. And you can get unified clipboard by installing app for your OS (windows or linux) through playstore. You should try a new pixel device to see the improvement.
Some apps are better on iOS but it's not a big difference because some apps are better on android as well. People care about different apps in the end.
I think the definition of democracy exclude many countries today. One of the major point of democracy which I was taught in my social class was that we need enough choices in our parties and candidates. India doesn't have that. There are only two significant political parties at the central level and one of them has been weakened too much to be a competitor anymore.
There was a question in my exam about this too. Why are x countries not democratic despite having public elections?
If I could find my electronics elsewhere and for a reasonable price, I would choose that but I can't. Government butchered the manufacturing industry, imposed ridiculous taxes (even increased them during the pandemic), custom duties and all sort of red tape which makes education for young generation harder. How can individuals work on the next generation robots, electronics, whatever if you can't even get decent micro controllers and brushless motors in india?
And it's not like big indian companies aren't selling data back to china. Majority of unicorns in india are taking investment from China. Paytm is china funded. Why don't they ban any investment from China?
